Hi from a total newbie

[dimwittedmadmum]

Hi Guys, Came across this site yesterday after googling these beautiful creatures.We rescued "Darth Vader" after he was about to be flushed away :shocked: by his then owners whose kids were sick of cleaning him out. Was asked if we wanted him and must admit we have always liked him (as we visit them often) so jumped at the chance.Then came the biggie of trying to find out rather hurridly how to look after Darth as we have no knowledge of his species.That was until we spent the entire evening - till around 1.00am reading your website.Loads of information available and from what we can see, we seem to have set him up correctly

. After his first 24 hours with us Darth appears well - even eating off the tongs we bought to feed him with. A trip to the local pet store (after following advice here) has got us stocked up on the correct food so here's hoping for a long relationship with him. Any advice from you guys will be truely appreciated though - especially as I have eye strain right now from reading all the time

 

[Otterwoman]

What species is it?

 

[dimwittedmadmum]

See told you I was a Newbie. Darth Vader is an axolotl but I don't know which type or have any idea how old he is, so thats my next quest. If anyone knows how I can tell (never realised there were different types),I would be greatful. All I can say at the moment is that he is all black and about 14cms long

 

[gr33neyes]

If you could post a picture of him that would be great.

 

[dimwittedmadmum]

This is Darth Vader

 

[gr33neyes]

He's possibly a dark wildtype.
The gravel may be a no no i'm afraid. Axolotls are known to swallow it and it can get stuck in their gut and cause a blockage and possibly death. Much better to have sand or a bare tank bottom. Some keepers do use gravel and report no problems, however it has been quite a frequent problem with axolotls swallowing it .

 

[dimwittedmadmum]

Hi, thanks for the tip.I did read about this but thought seeing as he was in this tank with this set up from day one, I was unsure whether to change it or not for fear of unsettling him even further.Will certainly look into removing this and possibly using sand though I do prefer a bare bottom tank.

 

[oregon newt]

They were going to flush it down the toilet!!!That's horrible! I can't believe someone would do that especially considering that it was still alive. By the way, I like the way your set-up looks.

 

[dimwittedmadmum]

Poor Darth has left us today for the big Axolotl palace in the sky.

We noticed he was not right this morning - all floppy and not moving much.We checked his tank - water was correct temperature and all ph balances etc were correct.Searched the net for possible causes but nothing specific came up.Even rang our aquatic centre but they could not help.
This evening on checking him he was completely lifeless with his mouth wide open.

A proper buriel has taken place in our "pets graveyard" under the tree (where all our liitle pets are ranging from hamsters to budgies over the years).

Up until today he was doing really fine - was loving his new tank set up - we had removed the gravel a couple weeks ago and lowered the water level slightly with his log sticking out a bit.He would come to the surface and bob his head out. Darth was even coming up when he saw us with his food so we presume he had settled now
We are all devastated at the moment as we cannot understand what we did wrong or why he passed on.If anyone can shed any light we would be grateful.

 

[bottbeck]

srry to hear

well i am very srry to hear that luck finaly caught up with old darth

i am new to this myself but the only thing i could think of is that if he was comming to the water surface alot there could of been alot of ammonia/ nit in his tank or not enough oxygen but apart from that i have no idea. at least he passed in comfort combared to bieng bashed against toilet pipes untill drowned good job on the rescue srry it didnt work out